The intellectual-historical claim of this section is that Hobbes's account of the natural condition in chapter XIII rests on knowledge and its absence rather than on violence: war is a condition in which hostility is known and peace is not assured, and the passions that lead out of it look forward to what cannot yet be seen. The section adds to the debate of Section 2 by showing that visibility is not an addition made from outside Hobbes but a term already working at the foundation of his theory of protection.
4.1Equality and the reasoning of diffidence
The chapter opens with equality. Hobbes's equality is not moral but practical: no one is so strong that another cannot kill him.
Nature hath made men so equall, in the faculties of body, and mind; as that though there bee found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind then another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so considerable, as that one man can thereupon claim to himselfe any benefit, to which another may not pretend, as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger with himselfe.
The second sentence names the means: "secret machination" and "confederacy". Both are invisible until they act. The weakest is dangerous because what the weakest is doing cannot be seen. Under the heading "From Equality Proceeds Diffidence", diffidence being the old word for distrust, Hobbes derives from distrust the most reasonable course open to anyone who cannot see what others intend:
And from this diffidence of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himselfe, so reasonable, as Anticipation; that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can, so long, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him: And this is no more than his own conservation requireth, and is generally allowed.
The verb that ends the anticipation is a verb of sight: one masters others "so long, till he see no other power great enough to endanger him". Security, in the natural condition, is a state of seeing no danger, and since no one can see far, the state is never reached.
4.2War as weather
The passage the chapter is known for defines war in terms of time and knowledge:
Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man. For WARRE, consisteth not in Battell onely, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to contend by Battell is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time, is to be considered in the nature of Warre; as it is in the nature of Weather. For as the nature of Foule weather, lyeth not in a showre or two of rain; but in an inclination thereto of many dayes together: So the nature of War, consisteth not in actuall fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE.
Three phrases carry the weight. The will to contend is "sufficiently known". War consists in "the known disposition thereto". And it lasts "during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary." War is therefore a state of knowledge and of its lack. One is at war not when blows are struck but when hostility is known and its absence is not assured. Peace is defined only negatively, as "All other time".
For the question of this article, the last of the three phrases is the important one. A condition persists, on Hobbes's account, until there is assurance to the contrary. The burden is not on evidence of danger but on evidence of safety. Whoever cannot see that the danger has passed remains, in the relevant sense, in the condition.
4.3What the condition costs
Hobbes then lists what is lost in such a time, in the most quoted sentence of the book:
In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.
The reason given for the first loss is again epistemic: there is no industry "because the fruit thereof is uncertain". People do not refrain from work because work is forbidden but because they cannot see whether they will keep what it produces. Uncertainty itself is the restraint. The list then includes, among its losses, "no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time". The natural condition is not only dangerous; it is one in which people cannot see far, in space or in time.
4.4Evidence from locked doors
Hobbes expects the reader to doubt that nature makes people so dangerous to one another, and he answers with an appeal not to argument but to conduct:
Let him therefore consider with himselfe, when taking a journey, he armes himselfe, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his dores; when even in his house he locks his chests; and this when he knows there bee Lawes, and publike Officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall bee done him; what opinion he has of his fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow Citizens, when he locks his dores; and of his children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions, as I do by my words?
The passage matters for two reasons. First, it shows Hobbes reading opinions from actions: a locked chest is a statement about the household. The method is one of inference from what can be seen to what cannot. Second, the reader in the passage already lives under laws and armed officers, and still locks the doors. Protection by the common power is known to exist; it is not seen to reach the bedroom or the chest. The subject supplements it, at the subject's own cost, where it is not visible. The passage thus records, inside a commonwealth, a small persistence of the natural condition wherever the reach of protection cannot be seen.
Hobbes adds at once that no accusation of human nature is meant:
The Desires, and other Passions of man, are in themselves no Sin. No more are the Actions, that proceed from those Passions, till they know a Law that forbids them; which till Lawes be made they cannot know: nor can any Law be made, till they have agreed upon the Person that shall make it.
The sentence ties the force of law to knowledge of it. Actions are not sins until people "know a Law that forbids them", and they cannot know a law until one is made. Fuller's requirement that rules be published (Fuller 1964) has, in this sentence, an ancestor of a sort: an unknown law does not bind the conscience. Hobbes's own conclusion follows a few paragraphs later: "Where there is no common Power, there is no Law: where no Law, no Injustice."
4.5What chapter XIII adds
Chapter XIII adds to the debate of Section 2 a point the view from above usually leaves implicit. Hobbes's protection is not only the absence of violence; it is assurance, and assurance is a matter of what can be known. The natural condition persists wherever that assurance is missing, as the locked chests show, even inside a commonwealth. When the article later asks what a subject must see to judge that protection has ended, it is asking Hobbes a question his own first chapter on the subject poses.